This is the slogan of the Every Child Deserves a 5th Birthday Campaign. This online campaign’s vision is that the stunning fact that 7-million children, a number that equals the population of New York City, die every year from treatable causes be not only recognized as unacceptable, but acted upon with greater commitment than ever before.

The Child Survival: A Call to Action summit in Washington DC later this week, hosted by the Obama administration, India and Ethiopia, hopes to help realize this vision.

A large majority of the children who don’t make it to their 5th birthdays are newborns. A study, published in the Oxford journal Health Policy and Planning just today highlights the lack of focus on newborn survival when it comes to foreign aid.

“In 2010, 3.1 million newborns worldwide died in their first month, 17% fewer than in 2000. But the annual reduction rate of deaths of newborns, now at 2.1%, lags behind that of children ages 1-59 months, which stands at 2.9%. Official development assistance for maternal, newborn and child health doubled from 2003 to 2008, yet only 6% of this funding mentioned newborns in 2008 and 0.1% of these funds exclusively targeted newborns.”

Okay, so numbers and percentages often make us all feel a bit sleepy. But what is genuinely interesting is how simple, yet extremely hopeful, the reality of what needs to be done to put an end to this problem really is.

The leading causes of death are pneumonia and diarrhea. And these diseases can be prevented by teaching and supporting optimal breastfeeding practices, adequate nutrition, vaccinations, hand washing with soap, assuring access to safe drinking water and basic sanitary practices.

On my Guatemala trip, I saw first hand how trained community members go about assuring that pregnant and post-partum mothers from the remotest highland regions get all the support and care they need to keep themselves and their babies healthy. Not only that, entire communities are being educated on farming practices and are given cooking and nutrition instruction, so their families will be better nourished.

And when I think of the number of beautiful young mothers, all wearing beautiful babies, I met in the short time I was there, mothers who want nothing more than for their children to grow and thrive, just like every mother I know does, I can only hope the world’s leaders will continue to make the effort to assure that this humble wish will become a reality.

Save the Children is calling on these leaders with an online petition, which they are hoping you will sign, to take action and make the commitment to end these preventable child deaths.

RECENT POSTS:

1 Response to 40% of preventable child deaths are newborns

J. Smithsays:

June 14, 2012 at 10:41 am

Please help! I need medical expert reports on the following drugs used during labor and childbirth:

Terbutaline
Brethine (terbutaline sulfate) (I heard that the Brethine packaging used to look exactly like another drug that could cause harm to the patients and that these two drugs were accidently mixed up by nurses alot)
Stadol NS (butorphanol tartrate)
Morphine
Beta Methasone
Vistaril
Ambien
Demerol
LR
and the results of mixing of these multiple drugs during labor and childbirth.

Also reports on what happens when fetal monitors are removed during labor and the patient is left unmonitored overnight.

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